People selling their 7970s?

[BallaTheFeared]

Just saw another post about high 7970 temps/loud fan noise.

680 is a better card all around, the only thing being argued on the net is if the 7970 can make up the performance gap through overclocking.

Everything else from noise, to power usage, the 680 thumps it.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Just saw another post about high 7970 temps/loud fan noise.

What is high temps to you?My card at 1125/1575 in game doesn't usually hit over 65cel at 45% preset fan speed,got my build in a antec 300 with 3 fans.

Overclocked sure that is a whole other matter but in most cases you can compensate with more fan noise,so in the end all anyone could complain about is the noise.

 

[vollman1]

Seems like the OC temps reach 80-90'C. I think still in the safe zone but really high.

I read only on report of that high a temp with stock settings, but that was probably just a defective card. I think it was an Asus and there was a problem with the card design.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Noise is pretty opinion based. I'd say all my setups are quiet, but the main reason are my headphones, pretty much ignores any noise made by my rigs.

As for temps, my 7970 never passes 50 C here. I'm pretty happy with it.

 

[Lavans]

680 is a better card all around, the only thing being argued on the net is if the 7970 can make up the performance gap through overclocking.

Everything else from noise, to power usage, the 680 thumps it.

Considering that the 7970 and 680 are the same price, why purchase the slower card just to OC it and match the 680 when you could just purchase the 680 and overclock that card instead?

 

[thilanliyan]

^680 is actually cheaper isn't it? 680 is the better card in most cases, except bitcoin mining

 

[DominionSeraph]

Found the source of the smell to be one of my 480s, took it apart, the VRM was scorched and the thermal tape was burnt on the uppermost VRM cluster. Just got my RMA today

Why are you RMA'ing overclocked hardware? You breaking it isn't Nvidia's fault, so why do you expect them to shell out ~$350 to replace it?

 

[mak360]

The 7970 is actualy a better buy than the 680 here in the UK, 7970 is a better overclocker, better build/pcp, 1gb extra ram for future proofing, less heat, £30 quid cheaper... Am i missing something here

£430 = GTX680 - 2GB - 256 bit
£399 = HD7970 - 3GB - 384 bit

 

[Grooveriding]

Why are you RMA'ing overclocked hardware? You breaking it isn't Nvidia's fault, so why do you expect them to shell out ~$350 to replace it?

I assume only people who receive hardware directly from nvidia rma through them. I bought my cards at an etailor.

http://www.zotacusa.com/warranty
http://www.zotacusa.com/forum/topic/4003-video-card-overclock-warranty/

 

[Lavans]

The 7970 is actualy a better buy than the 680 here in the UK, 7970 is a better overclocker, better build/pcp, 1gb extra ram for future proofing, less heat, £30 quid cheaper... Am i missing something here

£430 = GTX680 - 2GB - 256 bit
£399 = HD7970 - 3GB - 384 bit

Excess video memory is useless unless the game is actually utilizing it, and most games don't even exceed 1.5Gb of vram at 1920x1080. Bus bit isn't any indication as to how powerful a card will ultimately be. Yes, the HD7970 is less bottlenecked than the GTX680 at higher resolutions due to its bus, but the GTX680 is still faster in most situations.

Regardless, the value of the card depends on what you plan to use it for. In this case, if you just plan to pop the cards in and start gaming without much tweaking, then yes, the HD7970 is the better option. However, Nvidia offers a good amount of driver level settings that AMD does not. For example, you can force higher resolutions, run higher levels of anti-aliasing, there's more transparency anti-aliasing options, and FXAA works in both DirectX and OpenGL titles. If you take advantage of the GTX680's features, even if it were slightly less powerful than the HD7970, then you can definitely get more value out of your money.

 

[Golgatha]

My fan spins up nearly immediately when you get into heavy gaming, yet the temperatures always seem to stay low. That and Rift seems to randomly minimize (like when you purposefully alt-tab out of the game) to the desktop now within the first 5min of gameplay or when the screen stays static for a bit too long. It's a really odd issue. My GTX 680 gets here tomorrow and I can't wait to try it out.

Well, the random minimization within 5min seems to be a Rift issue, as it still happens with the GTX 680. However, I have yet to experience a rendering issue with any games I've tested so far. The noise of the GTX 680 is night and day though. I don't even here the thing when it's under full load. So quiet and powerful.

 

[railven]

I'm glad my Sapphire HD 7970 isn't having any of these heat and noise issues. Then again, my OC might not be as high as some of you guys. Since I've yet to run into a game that is giving me sub-60FPS I pretty much run it stock (need to reinstall BF3 or Metro 2033.)

Anyways, stock in a Corsair Cabride 500r with no additional fans (yet) I'm getting 60c load temps in games such as WoW/MW3/Rage/Batman: AC [need to fix my PhysX Hybrid upgraded from a 9800 GTX+ to a GTX 460 ]

Fan is usually <30% too. I'd have to say the HD 7970 is a bigger improvement over my HD 5870 in terms of temps, noise, and of course performance. Same time, the GTX 680 is quieter than the GTX 460 it replaced.

Great cards from both sides if you ask me. Price cut the 7970 and AMD is back in business (and do it soon so I can collect ).

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I have said this before. There is no reason to buy a new 7970 if it costs more in your country and you don't plan to overclock and you don't have any specific games in mind, especially for 1080p, go for a 680 in that case but if you already have a 7970 then there is no reason to side grade either. Also at 1440p or 1600p the 680 is almost never better in most of the games, not all, especially once both are overclocked. Most games can be run maxed out at 2560 1440 by either of these cards once they are overclocked. Most games at 1080p don't require this much power except with aa and af

 

[njdevilsfan87]

680 is a better card all around, the only thing being argued on the net is if the 7970 can make up the performance gap through overclocking.

It also has 3GB of VRAM as opposed to 2GB on the 680. More VRAM is always going to carry some value, even though it always gets debated (265mb vs 512mb, 512mb vs 1gb, 1gb vs 2gb, now 2gb vs 3gb and etc).

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I personally thought the 5760x1200 review on [H] show for most people it wasn't a factor, there are some people who used larger reses than that even, and 3GB would probably prove to be beneficial but for the more common of the less common 3x1200/1080 and single 1600p users it's a non factor at this point.

 

[Elfear]

I personally thought the 5760x1200 review on [H] show for most people it wasn't a factor, there are some people who used larger reses than that even, and 3GB would probably prove to be beneficial but for the more common of the less common 3x1200/1080 and single 1600p users it's a non factor at this point.

Well it's a small factor IMO. What we need is some 680 owners who play Skyrim and game at 1600p to throw some HD mods and eye candy on and see if they are vram limited. I see vram usage of up to 2.4GB but I'm not 100% sure that is usage, might just be the amount of vram allocated. I see the same thing in Civ 5 with maxed settings.

 

[Golgatha]

I am starting to think about doing this too.

I have not gamed all day nor put any sort of 3d load on my card,but i was sitting around googling stuff,when i heard my fan ramp up,so i check and see my card right up at 96cel ,fan at 25%,vddc sitting at 1.158...thats higher then a game load voltage,and i had booted up the machine this morning.

Why it decided to do that is beyond me,my machine stays on quite often so luckily i was in the room to catch it doing this,i even ramped up the fan to 100% dropped it to 60cel,dropped the speed down to 25% and watched it hit 80cel in less then a few mins,no game or app running,idle gpu usage.

Never had mine not cool properly, but it was noisy as heck when in a game. It's like any kind of a load meant ramp up to like 80% fan speed. Had some graphical anomalies when playing Rift, which are now not present with my GTX 680. All my older games seem to be more stable with the GTX 680 as well. No crashes yet using the latest drivers and I can utilize PhysX again. $110 lesson learned. nVidia + eVGA FTW.

 

[Golgatha]

Nope, $550 was MSRP and Newegg still has them at this price. I paid $610 for my Gigabyte card with the special cooling added on it. It stays cool and overclocks like a champ for sure, but the fan noise with the latest drivers is nutty. Had to roll back to the Beta drivers to get a bit of peace and quiet. Found a couple of instant adventure bosses that don't render properly in Rift, but they are pretty new content, so it will be interesting to see if the GTX 680 renders them properly.

Having a much better overall experience with the GTX 680. eVGA built their card like a tank. There is no PCB flex, it has WHQL drivers on day 1 (more nVidia's doing than eVGA, but still), and all the screws are tightened down well. All my games play without issues, and there is almost no noise present when under full gaming load. Best "side-grade" I've ever done. Unless AMD lowers the price of the 7970, I can't see anyone even considering them for purchase.

 

[blackened23]

I personally thought the 5760x1200 review on [H] show for most people it wasn't a factor, there are some people who used larger reses than that even, and 3GB would probably prove to be beneficial but for the more common of the less common 3x1200/1080 and single 1600p users it's a non factor at this point.

Well, the Frostbite 2 engine dynamically alters LOD depending on available VRAM. The difference is negligible, but it does scale visuals depending on whats available so its not always an apples to apples comparison. A dice developer discussed this at Geforce LAN last year - if more VRAM is available, the engine dynamically scales the visuals. Further, more VRAM helps you with more eye candy/mods and such, higher AA takes a toll on VRAM. Although I doubt many people would use 8x MSAA at 5760x1200, I personally have a hard time discerning between 2x - 8x MSAA at 2560 resolution.

This is how someone theoretically may value it, but seeing as most users aren't even close to being in that niche, i'd say it doesn't matter. AMD should have produced 1.5gb cards priced at much lower levels IMO.

 

[happyboy]

From what I heard also, the 680 is also whisper quite too.